Tag Archives: Bats

There are a myriad of issues surrounding Carlos Beltran that make him logically impossible to deal, but there reports out of Boston the Mets and Red Sox are talking.

BELTRAN: Would deal to Sox help Mets?

Undoubtedly, it is Boston’s cobra-mongoose struggle with the Yankees that has the Red Sox thinking about adding Beltran.

The Red Sox have a hole in the outfield and the designated hitter to slot in on an occasional basis (don’t forget David Ortiz will get most of those at-bats after the trade for Adrian Gonzalez).

Clearly, the Red Sox would be gambling to catch lightning in a bottle with Beltran in his walk year as worth taking the risk on the outfielder’s balky knees and $18.5 million salary.

Reportedly, the Red Sox are willing to part with Daisuke Matsuzaka, who will make $10 million in each of the next years. So essentially, the Mets would be trading a bad one-year contract for a bad two-year contract.

And, if the Mets have to eat about $8.5 million of Beltran’s contract to make the trade work, then what’s the benefit? They wouldn’t open up any payroll room because they’d still be on the hook for Beltran’s balance and Matsuzaka’s salary plus the latter’s salary for 2012.

The Mets would be trading the hope of Beltran bouncing back to hoping Matsuzaka will rebound. Yes, the Mets need pitching, but would Matsuzaka really help them?

That Boston is so eager to get rid of Matsuzaka should tell you something about what the Red Sox think of his ability to turn it around.

The one thing certain about the Mets and Beltran is this will be their last season together. Clearly, the Mets want to clear the books and think ahead to 2012. Beltran is not enamored with the organization for how it handled his knee problems and is seeking one more payday.

The Mets would like to trade Beltran, but their best hope for a good return will be if he gets off to a good start and stays healthy and they are able to swing something at the deadline.

Hope. That’s the best word to describe the Mets’ immediate prospects for 2011.

The decision to let Chris Carter go explains a lot about both the past and present regimes of the Mets.

Just to save a few dollars, the Mets traded Billy Wagner to Boston for Carter late in the 2009 season. The option would have been to pay out the balance of the contract, offer him arbitration and collect the compensatory draft choices when he declined.

Those draft picks would look good now for a team with a myriad of holes.

Then GM Omar Minaya didn’t want to take that gamble because of the fear Wagner might accept and saddle the Mets with a bad contract, albeit for one season. That fear was instilled in large part from pressure from the Wilpons to save money.

What Minaya didn’t realize, and therefore couldn’t relay to the Wilpons, was Wagner understood the Mets were a sinking ship and wouldn’t have wanted to come back anyway. In hindsight, the prudent decision would have been to pay out Wagner for 2009 and gamble on arbitration.

Tbat brings us to Sandy Alderson and the decision to cut ties with Carter.

There’s still pressure to save money where ever possible as the 2011 contract for Carter would be at least $200,000 (60 percent of last year’s contract) plus the minor league contract. Alderson can bring Carter back at a reduced rate in a new split contract.

The pressure is on Carter to accept because with Fernando Martinez (assuming he’s healthy) and Lucas Duda, the Mets already have left-handed bats off the bench.

Carter was productive as a pinch-hitter, but he’s strictly a one-dimensional player in that his defense and throwing are weak.

Alderson knows Carter doesn’t bring much to the table, at least not more than Martinez or Duda, so why pay the extra money that’s needed for a franchise that wants to pinch pennies?

The thing that stood out most in listening to Terry Collins this morning is his emphasis in “playing the game the correctly.’’

Collins promised an accent on fundamentals with a team that too often disregarded them in the past. This is a team that gives away too many at-bats, both at the plate and on the mound, and loses focus.

That is the culture Sandy Alderson and Terry Collins vowed to change.

One thing apparent in Alderson’s comprehensive search and handpicking of Collins as manager is the continuity between the front office and field staff. There will be no more players taking their issues over the manager to the general manager.

That was the chemistry in Anaheim when the players revolted against Collins, and with the Mets when Tony Bernazard sabotaged Willie Randolph, and the last two years when Jerry Manuel managed without the respect of his players.

Collins said the right things, but there’s more I’d like to hear from him:

THE CORE: Collins wants the game played correctly, but hasn’t elaborated on what he doesn’t like about David Wright and Jose Reyes.

Wright put up decent numbers last season, but they were somewhat deceiving because of his strikeouts. Wright still gives up too many at-bats to kill rallies. The right way also means increasing Reyes’ on-base percentage. Injuries have limited Reyes from running and if he’s healthy will Collins turn him loose?

CARLOS BELTRAN: Collins mentioned how badly Beltran wants to win. The team will keep Beltran because of his contract. Collins hasn’t said yet whether he wants Beltran to move to right field to make room for Angel Pagan in center.

THE BULLPEN: The Mets will offer arbitration to Pedro Feliciano. If he accepts the Mets will have a proven lefty specialist. With the assumption Francisco Rodriguez is back as closer, the next order of business in the pen will be designating a set-up man. Presumably, that will be Bobby Parnell. The Mets must now fill four spots in the bullpen. How many could be filled from the minor league system Collins oversaw last summer?

THE ROTATION: With Johan Santana on the shelf indefinitely, the Mets have three starters heading into the winter meetings: Mike Pelfrey, RA Dickey and Jon Niese.

With the Mets not expected to be free-spending in the free-agent market, their options are from within, trades and middle-tier arms in free agency.

Collins must operate on the assumption there won’t be any significant additions so his thoughts on Dillon Gee are important. As it is now, no matter how healthy the Mets are with Jason Bay and Beltran, it means little without a strong rotation.

Alderson wants to unload Oliver Perez, but that’s a monumental task. Assuming the worst, that Perez is still here in the spring, how does Collins envision using him?

SECOND BASE: There are three candidates: Luis Castillo, Ruben Tejada and Daniel Murphy. If Murphy can handle the position defensively, he offers the best bat.

Collins knows Tejada from the minor leagues and probably has an idea of his ceiling.

JENRRY MEJIA: As of now, the Mets regard Mejia as a potential starter. With Collins’ background in player development he likely has his ideas of how he was used last year and what his timetable might be.

That Sandy Alderson is continuing the search for a new manager in the aftermath of his father’s death shows true leadership and commitment; it shows the taking of responsibility. I have a feeling whomever he chooses will be a sound choice, one who is probably every bit the leader Alderson is proving to be.

I’ve read with great interest about the lack of discipline in the Mets’ clubhouse and the need for an iron hand. This is another point in Terry Collins’ favor.

If there was a lack of discipline, it stems from the previous administration. Both Jerry Manuel and Omar Minaya were passive and too easy going and the players knew what they could and couldn’t get away with. Give a child an inch and he’ll take a mile.

Never was this more evident than in the case of Oliver Perez, whose selfishness forced the Mets to go with 24 players. Minaya was supposedly tight with the Hispanic players, but had no influence in the Perez case. Manuel, it was clear, had already lost the clubhouse at the end and couldn’t exert any authority, whether it be with Perez or anybody else for that matter.

To see Perez impose his will killed the clubhouse and the concept of team. But, too many other players had their own agendas long before Perez strangled the team.

It was obvious as the season faded that the Mets played with a lack of discipline. I don’t know if you’d call it a sense of entitlement as you would playing without passion or a fundamentally sound base.

Part of discipline should come from within, but a strong willed manager is essential in the molding part of a team. With some teams, you know there’s no questioning the authority of the manager. It’s that way in Boston and Philadelphia and St. Louis. It hasn’t been that way with the Mets.

When concentration wanders and at-bats are given away, both by the hitters and pitchers, a team looks lackluster and players fail to take accountability.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to play the game, and too often the Mets played the wrong way. And, there’s not a player not at fault.

Sandy Alderson’s first hire is former Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi as his special assistant, with presumably one of his responsibilities to help implement a “Mets Way,” throughout the organization, beginning with the lower levels of the minor league system.

Considering the dimensions of Citi Field, presumably an organizational philosophy will place an emphasis on pitching and defense first, followed by situational hitting, and down on the list power.

As the Giants proved, power is not essential to win, and the Mets have enough to get by with David Wright, Jason Bay and Carlos Beltran (presuming all are healthy, each has 30 homer potential) followed by Ike Davis.

It must begin with pitching, with the first step pounding the strikezone and getting ahead of the hitters. Hopefully, it will include instilling the mindset of working deep into games. When Mike Pelfrey was winning in June he worked fast, efficiently and kept the ball down. When he struggled in July he was the opposite and lost confidence.

The Mets have some talented arms below and I’d like the organization to keep them and not rush their progression. Let them develop a variety of pitches and not be reliant on just one pitch. The prime example is Mike Pelfrey, who gradually developed his secondary pitches, and Jenrry Mejia, who still has a way to go.

If the Mets are able to harness arms and pitch to contact, they should then let the defense take care of them. The Mets still gave away far too many outs, and this must be addressed in spring training. There were still instances of overthrowing the cutoff man and not knowing ahead of time of what to do with the ball.

Defensively, there must be more of a concentration on fundamentals, and this also pertains to the offense, where at times it was glaring as emphasized with the amount of strikeouts.

Offensively, way too many at-bats were given away because the hitter lacked patience and didn’t have a mastery of the strikezone. On-base percentage is a statistic that could be improved by nearly every hitter on the team, including Jose Reyes and Wright.

When the team was winning in June Reyes and Wright were on their games, which meant forcing the play and using the whole field. When they hit the skids in July, their situational hitting as a team was non existent.

Wright, Davis and Bay must reduce their strikeouts, which would automatically increase the on-base percentage and lead to more productive outs.

Power is baseball’s great eraser and always has been. The three-run homer can overcome a lot of things. However, being consistent fundamentally applies continuous pressure on the opposition and that’s the way to go.

I want players who’ll force the action, who know how to take the extra base, who’ll make the correct decisions and not take plays off. I want to see a hustle that was absent at times. We saw Angel Pagan have a horrific season fundamentally in 2009, but he greatly improved last year so it can be done.

I want pitchers who’ll throw strikes and not beat themselves with walks. I want pitchers who’ll go after hitters, and not lose concentration after an error, bad umpire’s call or poor pitch.

This must be emphasized on the major league level, with consequences when it is not. It must also be taught and drilled in the minor leagues.

It’s not an overnight process, but if strongly implemented we should see results the first year.

The Mets’ Way should be to play smart, aggressive, fundamental and relentless ball. It shouldn’t be a novelty when a player advances a runner, hits the cutoff man or doesn’t get lazy in the strikezone with a pitch when he falls behind in the count.

It should be an all time thing.

Let’s face it, the Mets don’t have a rotation like that in San Francisco. They don’t have the power or the ability to buy their way out of trouble like the Yankees.

The Mets have talent, but to win they must out hustle and out work their opposition.